Weekend Box Office: X-Men: First Class Tops Field with Prequel-Size $56 Million

Weekend Box Office: X-Men: First Class Tops Field with Prequel-Size $56 Million

Great reviews propelled reboot X-Men: First Class to a solid if not stellar $56 million opening. Anthony D’Alessandro explains why.

Fox’s X-Men: First Class easily aced its weekend course in box office math by absorbing a solid $56 million into Fox’s coffers.

Yes, that’s not as high as the other X-Men films, but keep in mind that X-Men: First Class is a complete reboot with a fresh cast, and such titles often bow at a decent, non-record breaking figure, and wind up their runs with a three to four domestic multiple: see Casino Royale ($40.8 million opening, $167.4 million), Batman Begins ($48.7 million, $205.3 million) and Star Trek ($75.2 million, $257.7 million). The opening for X-Men: First Class is one that any studio would envy, particularly for a tentpole budgeted at $160 million. X-Men: First Class’ returns are further evidence that the B.O. summer market remains vigorous, especially with this weekend’s $158 million-plus besting the year ago frame of $128.8 million by 23%.

Top Ten Chart, X-Men review links, trailer below.

However, Hollywood has become somewhat spoiled by routine $80 million-plus domestic openings on superhero films. With Thor’s just-OK bow of $65.7 million and X-Men: First Class’ ranking fourth-best in its series (X-Men: The Last Stand owns the record first frame of $102.8 million), is the superhero genre getting moth holes in its cape? Globally speaking, no. Paramount’s Thor currently stands at an estimated $427 million, having already outstripped the worldwide returns of Batman Begins ($372.7 million) and any single Fantastic Four or Hulk title.

X-Men: First Class worldwide bow stands at $120 million, $64 million of which came from 75 territories. Typically, X-Men films, except for Wolverine, take in slightly less than domestic in the end, but X-Men: First Class exceeded domestic in its first frame.

While many believe that producers Bryan Singer and Lauren Shuler Donner didn’t need to refresh the X-Men franchise, the series was showing signs of running long in the Sabretooth. Critical response for the last two films, X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($180 million) and X-Men: Last Stand ($234.4 million) fell to respective critical lows of 37% and 57% rotten . X-Men: Last Stand had traded in character for big bangs. It was essential that X-Men: First Classreturn to basics. Mission accomplished: The reboot’s Tomatometer surged to 87% fresh, a height on par with the first two installments.

In an avant-garde marketing move for a Marvel title, Fox and the producers didn’t trot out the film at Comic-Con or Wondercon, nor did they over-saturate the web with large amounts of marketing material. They teased a small set of photos in January before releasing a slew last month. Fox specifically sought out fans on Facebook with the first trailer in February and also cross-branded with the site’s social network game Mafia Wars. Promotional partners included a Best Buy London trip sweepstakes, as well as targeting the Red State demo with Army spots and adults with Farmers Insurance ads.

Demo breakdown was 58% guys, 42% females with over 25 dominating at 54%. Cinemascore earned are an A- grade for those under 25 and B+ for 25 and up.

Most of all, so as not to sideline families with premium pricing, X-Men: First Class didn’t jump onto the -3D bandwagon per Shuler Donner who exclaimed at yesterday’s Produced By confab, “I believe the movie itself tells you whether it should be 3D. And I believe there’s a little too much 3D right now.”

Another big winner to come out of this weekend is director Matthew Vaughn, who attempted to change the game on superhero films with Kick-Ass, which failed commercially ($48.1 million). X-Men: First Class clearly shows that he has enough mutant powers to open tentpoles.

Outside of X-Men auditoriums, folks took a break from moviegoing after their record spending over Memorial Day. Most top 10 films saw declines of 50% or greater. Still business wasn’t lethargic exactly, with Fast Five crossing the two century mark and Bridesmaids taking in over $107 million. Sony Pictures Classics and Fox Searchlight continued to jockey for adults with auteur expansions of Woody Allen’s well-reviewed Midnight in Paris–up 51% with a $2.9 million weekend–and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, up 66% with a $621,000 three-day and a 10-day cume of $1.3 million. Fox Searchlight added San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, D.C., Dallas, Atlanta and Minneapolis to its Tree of Life play this weekend and moved up its national release of 200-plus runs from July to June 24th. Next weekend, Midnight in Paris goes wide in 750 to 1,000 locales. Go, Woody!

Comments

mary
May 14, 2016 7:57 pm

I agree with you, Anthony. I also think that one major factors for the decline in movie theater attendance is the eariler home video release. (Major studios shorten the window between theatrical and home video release since the DVD golden era. Now, both movie theater attendance and home video revenue are declining)

Shortening the theatrical release window would help major studios to ger more revenue for a short while. But in the long-term, audience will change their movie-watching attitude at the expense of major studios and theater owners.

“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” has grossed $3.2 million and officially became IFC Films’ highest-grossing release since 2006.

By the way, IFC Films’ three highest-grossing releases since 2006 are “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”, “Wordplay” and “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”; all of those three movies didn’t receive day- and-date VOD release from IFC Films….
So much for the theory that eariler VOD releases won’t hurt box office….